Best U.S. places to escape civilization

By Jordan Burchette, for CNN

Updated 0505 GMT (1205 HKT) June 17, 2014

U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

U.S. remote vacation spots – Admittedly, there are hikes more secluded than the High Peaks Wilderness section of Adirondack Park in New York. But you can still find seclusion in the largest publicly protected area on the U.S. mainland.

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U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

Mooney Falls (Supai, Arizona) – Deep within the Grand Canyon's western edge, the Havasupai tribal village of Supai is the most remote community in the continental United States. Mail is still delivered via mule.

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U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

Wildcat Beach (California) – The 5.5-mile hike (or seven-mile bike ride) keeps the average beach-goer from reaching Wildcat Beach, a vehicularly inaccessible notch of the popular Point Reyes National Seashore.

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U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

Everglades National Park (Florida) – A black vulture (pictured) may be your only paddling companion in Florida's Everglades.

U.S Route 50 (Nevada) – Need time to just drive and crank some Journey? The dusty ribbon of U.S. 50 crosses Nevada, starting from Lake Tahoe and stretching about 400 miles east.

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U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

Angle Inlet (Minnesota) – The highest point of latitude on the U.S. mainland, Minnesota's Angle Inlet is so remote the only way to reach it by land is through Canada. It's one of few U.S. points of entry to the Lake of the Woods (pictured), a freshwater Eden with world-class walleye fishing.

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U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

Wasatch Mountains (Utah) – Mountain goat are as abundant in Utah's high alpine areas as treacherous peaks and cliff faces, making the Wasatch Mountains a destination of maximum risk and reward offering minimum human contact.

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U.S. remote vacation spots10 photos

Little Diomede Island (Alaska) – Want to do some Russia spotting? The island of Little Diomede, Alaska (foreground left) and the island of Big Diomede, Russia (rear right) are situated in the Bering Sea. The International Dateline runs between the islands.

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Secluded swamps, forsaken tundra, vacuous canyons, yonder mountain ranges, deserted deserts -- despite all the development, the United States is still home to plenty of untamed hinterland.

Here's the ultimate list of those destinations with suggested activities for each.

The criteria are as simple as they are vague: maximum distance from other humans and any signs of their existence, including but not limited to roads, posted signs, smokestacks, government surveillance, electronic dance music, Snapchat and cronuts.

In 2008, Backpacker magazine identified the most remote coordinates in the lower 48 United States: Yellowstone National Park's Two Ocean Plateau.

But there's more to seclusion than geography -- chiefly, the absence not only of civilization, but civilians as well, and Yellowstone hosted 3.19 million of them last year.

According to an ecologist couple dedicated to identifying the most remote spot in each U.S. state, that location is smack in the middle of Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

It took the couple five days hiking in, during which they encountered grizzly bears and mountain goats, traversed white limestone and red sandstone streams and crossed the Great Divide en route to maximum peoplelessness.

The falls are active year round, but peak in activity following the rainy season, from January to March.

Strong currents make the ocean more of an aesthetic rather than recreational feature of the beach, but once the morning fog of the summer months burns off, Wildcat's 2.5 miles of expansive sands and encompassing cliff-side ramparts make for a sunny yet secluded beach adventure.

The nation's most famous paddleways are Minnesota's Boundary Waters -- explaining their absence here.

Less frequented, especially come summer, is the labyrinth of mangrove forests, Gulf beaches and sawgrass marshes comprising Everglades National Park.

Wilderness Waterway is the 99-mile corridor from Everglades City down to Flamingo, flanked by plenty of alternate routes that promise one of the most humanly deserted, biologically diverse wilds in the world; more than 360 species of bird, endangered panthers and the only known coexistence of alligators and crocodiles on earth.

Gator country: You might not be entirely alone in the Florida Everglades.

Mainland Florida's most remote spot can also be found within the 'Glades, 17 miles from the nearest road -- just one mile closer than Montana's farthest reach.

The highest point of latitude on the U.S. mainland is so remote the only way to reach it by land is through Canada.

In fact, being the product of a surveying error in the Treaty of Paris, the Northwest Angle should by all rights be Canadian.

Instead, it's one of few U.S. points of entry to the Lake of the Woods, a 1,700-square-mile freshwater Eden with a world-class walleye population in addition to pike, perch, muskie, bass, trout, sturgeon, crappie and sauger.

Following a secessionist stunt in the late-1990s intended to raise awareness of neighboring Ontario's restrictive catch limits, visitors to the Angle are now able to keep their often trophy-size catches.

*Despite that disclaimer above excluding the 49th state, we can't help making one exception to this list because, if we're being honest, just about the most remote everything in the United States is located in Alaska.

It has the most land and lowest population density of any state, while offering some of the richest natural spoils on earth.

But the tiny island of Little Diomede poses not only one of the most effective escapes from humanity, it also offers the kind of front-row vistas on Russia that once formed the putative centerpiece of Sarah Palin's foreign policy.

In the middle of the 50-mile expanse separating the United States and its renewed rival is a population of approximately 40 people for whom it's a hardscrabble life -- but the views of Siberia are superb.